Li urges eth­i­cal ap­proach to re­search

Premier Li Ke­qiang urged sci­en­tists and re­search in­sti­tutes to ex­er­cise more in­tegrity and pro­fes­sion­al­ism and to achieve ex­cel­lence. Mis­con­duct, he said, in­clud­ing eth­i­cal vi­o­la­tions, should be se­ri­ously in­ves­ti­gated and pun­ished.

Li also en­cour­aged the pro­mo­tion of a sci­en­tific spirit, urged re­search pro­fes­sion­als to con­cen­trate on their stud­ies and called for more op­por­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple to de­velop their tal­ents.

The premier made the re­marks as he presided over the first ple­nary meet­ing of the Na­tional Science and Tech­nol­ogy Lead­ing Group — re­vamped in Au­gust from the pre­vi­ous Na­tional Science, Tech­nol­ogy and Ed­u­ca­tion Lead­ing Group — which over­sees China’s science and tech­nol­ogy sec­tor.

The meet­ing aimed to pro­mote sci­en­tific and tech­no­log­i­cal in­no­va­tion, and to give greater au­ton­omy to re­search in­sti­tutes and pro­fes­sion­als.

Li said more vig­or­ous ef­forts are nec­es­sary to pro­mote tech­no­log­i­cal in­no­va­tion and high-qual­ity de­vel­op­ment, which will usher in a new global tech rev­o­lu­tion and ac­cel­er­ate China’s eco­nomic re­struc­tur­ing.

He also called for more fo­cus on core tech­nolo­gies, cul­ti­va­tion of new eco­nomic driv­ers and fur­ther in­te­gra­tion of science and tech­nol­ogy with the econ­omy.

Long-term sta­ble sup­port should be pro­vided for ba­sic re­search, which Li said is the en­gine of the coun­try’s science and tech­nol­ogy sec­tor. En­ter­prises and in­di­vid­u­als should be guided to make greater in­vest­ments in the area and strive for more orig­i­nal achieve­ments, he said.

The mar­ket should play a de­ci­sive role in pro­mot­ing in­no­va­tion, and lead­ing en­ter­prises should lead ma­jor sci-tech pro­jects to trans­form re­search break­throughs into real prod­ucts, Li said.

He urged de­vel­op­ment of new plat­forms by next-gen­er­a­tion re­search in­sti­tutes — in­dus­trial in­ter­net plat­forms, for ex­am­ple — to move the econ­omy to mi­dlevel and higher.

The premier also called for strength­ened in­tel­lec­tual prop­erty rights pro­tec­tion and the con­struc­tion of a more pleas­ant en­vi­ron­ment for fos­ter­ing in­no­va­tion. Re­search in­sti­tutes and pro­fes­sion­als should be given more au­ton­omy, and other in­cen­tives should be of­fered, in­clud­ing more ben­e­fits for shar­ing re­search, Li said.

The group, which is headed by Li, in­cludes min­is­te­rial-level of­fi­cials from more than 10 State Coun­cil de­part­ments. It was set up to work on and re­view na­tional strate­gies, plans and ma­jor poli­cies in science and tech­nol­ogy, to de­cide on cru­cial sci-tech mis­sions and pro­grams and to co­or­di­nate dif­fer­ent de­part­ments.

Vice-Premier Liu He is the group’s deputy head and Wang Zhi­gang, min­is­ter of science and tech­nol­ogy, is di­rec­tor of its gen­eral of­fice.

Last year, about 1.76 tril­lion yuan ($255 bil­lion) was spent on re­search and de­vel­op­ment na­tion­wide, an in­crease of 12.3 per­cent year-on-year.